Today’s market is changing quickly and brands who are not on top of their efforts are quickly left behind. If you are struggling to stay relevant to your current audience, then you need to find ways to push back to the top.

Listen to What They are Saying

In this fast-paced world of social media and frequent online communication, do you know what the public is saying about you? It will be easier to remain relevant to your audience if you are able to respond to their reactions and learn from their unsolicited opinions.

From a specific product to the overall feel of your brand, you can use social listening tools, like Social Mention, to actually get a feel for how things are being said. Social Mention measures the sentiment, strength, passion, and reach of comments containing the keywords you specify. The dashboard allows you to look at the individual Tweets, Facebook posts, LinkedIn comments, and other mentions about your brand, products, employees, marketing campaigns, or any other brand-related keywords you might want to monitor.

Ask for Specific Input

Use your social media pages or email list to specifically ask your audience to weigh in on an aspect of your website, product line, or content. Utilize a quick poll through your email client, or send willing respondents to complete a short, online survey. You will have the opportunity to understand why your audience feels they have outgrown you and may be moving on.

Re-Analyze and Re-Segment Your Email List

If you are getting a lot of opt-outs and very few click-throughs, it is probably time to reexamine your mailing list. Are you using an old list that needs to be revitalized? Don’t hesitate to send out a re-opt-in message to an old list and cut away the dead parts. It might feel like a step backward, but you will be free to begin building a new list of strong leads.

Do you need to re-segment? If you aren’t constantly reconfiguring a segmented list, then you are probably not sending relevant content to the right consumers. Divide your list into sections by location, purchase point, sales funnel position, products viewed, and more so that only relevant emails are filling their inbox. You don’t want to send pushy purchase promos to a customer who just purchased from you the day before and you don’t want to send local event information to recipients who live several states over.

Check out What the Competition is Offering

If you aren’t as relevant as you want to be, then who is? Look at the competition and see what they are doing — then, do it better. If you aren’t already signed up to get competition emails, then do it now. You should know how other companies are talking to your audience. You can also set up your social listening tools to check out what others are saying about your competition and compare those numbers with what they’re saying about you.

Look at Industry Influencers

There are important figures influencing your audience and you should know who they are. From popular bloggers to celebrities to other companies, the industry influencers have audience ears and make an impact when they say something. Are they favorable toward your brand and products? Do they even realize you exist? Work to get these industry influencers to test and review your products for their followers by offering free merchandise, gift cards, or giveaway packages.

Choosing the Right Moment

When important public events occur, it is nearly as important to choose the right time as it is to choose the right message. When bombs went off at the Boston Marathon, some brands were seen as opportunistic for responding too quickly, while others appeared apathetic with responses that were too slow. Steven Shattuck, SEO of Slingshot, reminded brands on Twitter that they should disable scheduled posts immediately so they didn’t appear indifferent to the tragic event. Brands like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s were able to offer heartfelt messages without selfish promotion and paired with the perfect “Goldilocks” timing.

A/B Testing

If you aren’t exactly sure what your audience wants, test it! A/B testing shows how your audience responds with something simple like an email, PPC ad, or landing page. Two versions are made with one very small difference in layout, images, font, or wording and then analyzed to see which one gets better click-through rates. Your email list is divided in half and each segment continues to receive either A or B pieces. Over time, you will notice patterns that tell you specific preferences your audience has when it comes to technical design aspects or brand appeals.

Predictive Personalization and Responsive Design

Does your content adapt to your audience? Predictive personalization examines the behavior of an individual and then presents content accordingly. Companies, like Amazon or Ebay, use predictive personalization to show products you might be interested in, based on products you were previously viewing.

Responsive design allows your website and emails to be viewed properly on whatever screen the user is pulling them up on. There is quite a difference between a small smartphone screen and a large desktop screen; predictive personalization is able to slim content, reconfigure layouts and resize fonts so your design makes sense on every device format.

Try New Content Mediums

Don’t put yourself in a content box. Experiment with new content types and see what your audience responds to. Memes, infographics, short Vine videos, and longer YouTube tutorials could all be great tools for your marketing efforts. The first time you try a new medium, it will probably take a lot of time to research and produce, but with each attempt it will get faster. Consider adding new content to your A/B testing to see how audiences respond to the new content in comparison with the old.

Aristotle said persuasive appeals could be divided into three categories — pathos (emotion), logos (logic), and ethos (credibility). The best content will utilize all three. Become relevant to your audience once more with the right methods, presenting the right messages, at the right times.